Elemental Force

CHAPTER 10:
Dreams Without Sleep

She said I could never do that,
But I know you can. You are in my dreams
We are one person not two of a kind,
And what was mine is now in your possession.
~Neil Finn


He walked up stairs clutching the book to his chest. Kingsley had been a friend, but how dare he make insinuations about his mental state. When Lupin entered his chamber, he securely locked the door. He wasn’t going to have another incident with a visiting Tonks as he had the week previous. He conjured some tea with the water from the pitcher at the nightstand, and he began to study the Ravenclaw book again to make sure he’d not missed anything the first time.

He knew Ginny was alive because he’d seen her with his own eyes. He had also seen her being tortured. He took another sip of tea thinking how easy his life was here compared to what she must be suffering. He couldn’t allow her captivity to continue any longer.

The day had been long and emotional, and quickly his eyes began to droop. Remus drifted off to sleep with book in hand.

\"Surely, you plan on doing something about it, Remus,\" cajoled a voice near his ear.

He turned his face to the voice, certain that he’d locked the door, and he saw Sirius Black’s young face. His gleaming grey eyes were shining with mischief as usual.

\"Do something about what?\" he asked him, his voice sounding scratchy.

\"You have to save the fair red haired maiden from the clutches of the black knight!\" Sirius urged as he brandished his wand like a fencing epée.

\"Padfoot, what are you playing at?\" he replied irritably.

\"You aren’t looking, Remus. Don’t you know to keep your wits about you?\" Sirius teased.

Remus heard him and took a confused look around. It was then that he was outside on the grounds of Hogwarts. How had he gotten here? He had already been there earlier today and didn’t rightly care to go back. Then his eyes feel upon them. There she was, all beauty and loveliness, red hair tumbling down her back being held captive by the kisses of a black haired madman.

\"James!\" Remus called. \"Are you ever going to let Evans go? She might want to breathe.\"

The two broke apart their kiss for only a moment. Her face was fully flushed, and James straightened the glasses over his green eyes.

Remus blinked and looked again. James didn’t have green eyes. \"Harry?\" he asked.

\"Who’s Harry?\" the red head asked breathlessly.

\"He’s your son with James,\" he accused, wondering what was wrong with these people.

\"Harry Potter,\" a low voice hissed from the place Sirius had been. \"He will die.\"

Lupin looked over his shoulder to see that the youthful elegance of Sirius Black had changed into something or someone else, and he had taken on the blazing green eyes like those of Lily Evans.

\"Who are you?\"

\"I’m not the man you think I am,\" he said with a cold smile as he nodded back to the red head and the other black haired man.

His eyes changed to the blue of James, but yet he wasn’t. He had done something to Lily so that she was as useless as a child’s doll. The green color of her eyes drained to brown as he grabbed her by the scruff of the neck and started running away with the limp body.

\"No, you can’t have her!\" Remus shouted to him as he began to follow.

\"Of course I can,\" he said confidently with the parody of Lily dragging at his feet. \"I’ve always had her in every age.\"

\"Not her,\" Remus challenged as he fell before her to make sure she was okay. He put his hand along her jaw and turned her face to him. When the woman who looked back to him was not Lily Evans.

\"Ginny,\" he breathed in surprise.

Around them men began to gather and Remus looked up into the faces of five wizards all with similar masks of darkened hair and eyes that changed from blue to green. One with grey eyes stepped forth from the crowd and knelt near them.

\"I told you to save her, Moony. Don’t forget,\" Sirius said before the whole tableau disappeared.

Remus flinched awake and once again he was in the lonely bed in his room at the Order Headquarters. He glanced to his bedside, and there was the wedding photo with all people smiling back at him not looking at all like his dream. Life was normal again, and that meant that James, Lily and Sirius were all gone.

And Ginny, too, if you don’t hurry, Moony, a calm voice reminded.

He slammed the book down on the table and hung his head in his hands. He had been trying to find her, and all he got for the growing obsession was a dream with the ghosts of old friends and other people he did not know.

\"You’re not mad, Remus,\" a familiar voice barked.

\"I am if I keep hearing you when you’re not here,\" he said to the empty room. The silence of the room was the only rebuttal he heard.

Remus took off his robes and slipped into bed hoping not to continue any odd or seemingly prophetic dreams. Let those be for the lot who believed in such nonsense.

~*~

Brown eyes blinked open in the darkness. If she had to guess, Ginny would say it was three in the morning. Barely anything moved at this time. Even the nocturnal rodents had a slump in their circadian rhythms near this time.

She’d heard it, though. A voice had called her name. She had been dreaming of Harry and Hogwarts, and he interrupted. No one in this place knew her name. None had asked because none had cared.

Ginny got up and shuffled to the window. She favored her damaged ribs as she peered outside. Moonlight was shining softly down. The full moon is coming, she thought as she stared out into the stillness. She wasn’t particularly observant about the moon phases. She did well in astronomy, but she did well in most of her classes. Compared to someone like a werewolf, though, she was an amateur.

Werewolves. Now there did that thought come from? she asked herself. At least those were more pleasant thoughts than alternatives she’d had. She wasn’t going to mentally beat herself down wondering when they’d find her or if they’d find her.

This wasn’t Hogwarts, and Jonathan wasn’t Tom. Harry and Ron hadn’t come with some dashing rescue, but she was still Ginny. She was a survivor, not a shrinking violet or some unfortunate damsel in distress in those books her mother pretended not to read.

Again, she surveyed the room around her for any weapons that she could use to protect herself. There was a set of dishes from the horrid breakfast of porridge they’d given her. Even something else as small as a loose rock would be valuable if she could use it the right way. The window, high and distant, was open to the weather, so it seemed like the most logical place from which to escape.

I need to learn to speak to rats, she thought to herself before walking around the room to think her way out of the problem. Morning would come on its own, so she‘d make the most of her time. Perhaps the voice that had called out to her would sound again.

~*~

\"Be still little girl!\" he heard before he felt the cracking at the top of his skull. A warm, sticky mess oozed over him. Salty blood dripped into his eyes, and a red haze filled his vision.

With a jerk, he awoke. Remus rolled over, opened his blood free eyes, and rubbed his face. This was one of many dreams he’d been having since Saturday night that included some feeling of Ginny’s torture. It was Thursday now and the dreams had only gotten steadily worse and more clear with the passing time.

He hadn’t confided this information to the others. If they already thought he was unbalanced, this wouldn’t help. He already knew from earlier times in his life what the suspicion of werewolves could do. It had left two of his best friends dead and their son orphaned.

This time in the waking, the wails started again in his mind. By now he was certain the sounds belonged to Ginny, though he couldn’t prove it. Remus was not a fan of the far-fetched, and to consider that it really was her pain and impressions he was feeling was something that would be more at home on the pages of the Quibbler.

The power of the screams in his mind made him double over in pain. He clutched at his ears as if to block away the sounds, but they would not leave him so easily. He had to find her if only to save his own sanity. Once the sensation subsided, he walked downstairs to where he’d find the others.

Mad-Eye was the first to acknowledge him. \"Remus, you look like you haven’t slept,\" he observed.

Lupin mumbled, \"Bad night.\"

\"You’ve been having bad nights for a while now,\" he pointed out without his normal bluster.

\"There’s a full moon tomorrow night. It’s never easy,\" he hedged.

Remus hadn’t been taking his Wolfsbane potion at all this cycle. It had started on Saturday when he vomited into the bushes outside of Hogwarts. Some inner part of him was rebelling because in the days since he’d found an easy way to make it appear as if he’d taken his potion. With a quiet incantation of \"Evanesco!\" it had all disappeared and none of the others was the wiser for it.

\"Shaklebolt and I have to go to Wales on an assignment for the Order. No, not about Ginny,\" he said before Lupin could ask. \"We won’t be back until Saturday, but Tonks will stay behind if you should need her. If anything happens, we are only an owl away.\"

\"Thank you,\" Remus nodded. \"Good luck.\"

Moody tipped his bowler hat to Remus and left the Order Headquarters.

~*~

Hours later when Tonks came back to check on Remus she found him working on spells on the lower floor of the house.

\"Nothing is working. Nothing at all!\" he said aloud with his jaw was clenched in anger.

She knocked lightly on the frame of the door so he would know she was there. Then the young woman walked into the room to see what he’d been doing.

\"Have you tried all the location spells? Surely there must be something we missed.\" Tonks reached for one of the book to look again to see if some spell had been overlooked.

Remus lamented the facts. \"She is unplottable. We can not find her anywhere, and not even the somewhat useful Weasley clock can give us a clue. I have asked Molly several times.\"

Tonks chose to bravely address the fear that had been on many minds. \"It has been almost two weeks, Remus. Do you think she’s still... alive?\"

He shot her a seething glare for asking and then looked hopelessly at all the research items around him. \"Damn it, Ginny! Where are you?\" Lupin said before he slammed his fist down on the table in frustration, upsetting all the small objects that had been resting on the surface and making Tonks jump in the process.

\"Just because you don’t like the question doesn’t mean it’s not worth asking, Remus! All the spells we’ve tried only work if the person we are trying to find is alive.\" She had a sad look on her heart-shaped face.

Lupin looked at her in assessment and then sighed. \"I know you’re right about the spells. Even so, I just know she’s alive and out there somewhere. I can feel it

\"I want to find her, too!\" Tonks said in a rush. \"Just don’t go trying to save everyone that is lost because you couldn’t save Sirius.\"

Remus paled at the mention. \"This isn’t about Sirius,\" he said quietly, \"and you don’t have to think everything I do is about him.\"

She bristled with both hurt and irritation. \"You aren’t the only one who lost him, Remus. Sirius was my cousin.\"

\"I know that!\" he spat back at her. \"But this isn’t about me. It isn’t about Sirius, and it sure as hell isn’t about you! This is about finding Ginny Weasley before another good and innocent family gets ripped apart by this horrible war.\"

He looked around the room at the gathered research and whispered almost inaudibly, \"We must find her before she looses all hope, or worse: her life.\"

\"She may have already lost it,\" she said again quietly.

\"She hasn’t,\" he bristled.

Tonks sighed at his stubborn nature and tried to console him. \"Remus...\" she said as she placed her hand on his arm.

He shook off her touch in annoyance. \"Nymphadora, I don’t have time for this! Stop trying to ply your ‘feminine wiles’ on me. It won’t work!\"

Tonks, who had certainly not at that time been trying to flirt with him, had finally had enough of continually being rebuffed, and though their situation was serious, she was going to argue her point.

\"I was not trying to do that, you imbecile, but even if I was how can you turn me down? You know I can be your fantasy because I can look like anyone you bloody hell want!\"

She emphasized it by morphing into a big-breasted blonde straight off the pages of a magazine centerfold. Then she tried a different tactic and made her appearance that of Sirius Black in his better days.

He looked distastefully at her and paced away. \"Maybe I just don’t like you. Did you ever think of that?\"

\"You just need a woman to give you a good shag,\" she said angrily.

He answered back with equal anger. \"Oh, is that it? You somehow think I’ve never been with a woman before and need to be taught the error of my ways?\"

\"What else could it be? If you knew what it was like with me, you certainly wouldn’t be turning me down right now!\"

\"No, I don’t think you get it. I never said I hadn’t been with a woman before.\"

\"Is that right?\" she asked challengingly. \"How many then?\"

\"Lots,\" he said slowly coming toward her. \"Let me tell you something else, so we are perfectly clear.\"

He placed his hands on her hips and pulled her closer. \"I am good,\" he said emphasizing the last word in particular. Then Remus whispered in one of the sexiest voices she had ever heard from him, \"I am so good I could make your toes curl even if you weren’t a Metamorphmagus.\" He dropped his eyelashes and opened his lips as to kiss her.

She whimpered with desire and tried to kiss him, but he stilled her with one fingertip on her lips. \"And you will never know just how good I am. Furthermore, all this innuendo of yours has nothing to do with finding Ginny Weasley!\"

Remus then walked away from her while an angry and frustrated Tonks tried to regain her composure. He spoke to her again a moment later while he was putting away the books and maps they did not need to use. \"If it’s an older man you want, why don’t you go pester Alastor?\"

\"Moody?\" she said with high-pitched indignation.

\"Yes,\" was his calm reply. \"Moody likes you. In fact, you’re one of the few people he actually does like. I’m not saying it’s romantic, but it’s something.\"

\"That’s just weird,\" Tonks said in distaste.

\"It’s no weirder than you thinking you can actually be with me,\" he said. \"Besides, if it’s a sense of adventure you’re trying to find, he is definitely adventurous. Have you never asked him how he got some of his scars? No? Well, it might be an interesting revelation for you.\"

Tonks glowered at him and remained at a distance the rest of the day.

~*~

Hogwarts, Marauders’ 6th Year, Fall

Lupin’s discussion with Tonks about his past lovers made him remember a similar conversation he had with Sirius some twenty-one years and a lifetime ago when both boys had been in sixth year. It wasn’t his sexual prowess that had been in question, but the number of partners he had. It had been laughable at that point because Sirius was as much of a dater as he was, if not more so.

Remus had returned to his room after a tryst he’d had with a willing Hufflepuff. He thought he was alone in the room, but he opened his bed curtains to find Sirius fully clothed and lying on top of his bed.

\"Hey, lover!\" Sirius gave him a teasing look as Remus was in the process of re-undressing himself.

\"What do you want, Sirius?\" he had asked with mild annoyance as he took off the shirt he had been haphazardly wearing.

\"I just came to find out about all these girls you’ve been dating.\" He gave him another look of something that resembled amusement as Remus was now shirtless and the top button of his trousers was undone.

\"Come to compare notes?\"

\"No, not exactly. I’ve come to tell you to stop.\"

\"You must be daft, or in the least a hypocrite!\"

\"Me? A hypocrite! No, Remus. I am not the one who turns into a werewolf once a month!\"

\"No, that’s me. I get all the fun of being a werewolf.\" His sarcasm was not missed by Sirius. \"It’s fun!\"

\"You could hurt someone more than you already do. Do you think those girls like being used and tossed aside?\" He questioned him with wide eyes, but then muttered an aside to his own self, \"Well some of them do, but that’s beside the point.\"

\"You mean there is a point to this? If you have one, make it soon because I am really tired.\" He stretched and did a mock yawn. \"I’ve had quite the active night.\"

\"I can see that!\" Sirius said with a measure of disgust. \"None of those clueless girls you’ve been shagging have even the smallest idea about who you are. Do you really think they would touch you again if they knew? They wouldn’t be able to handle it at all.\"

\"I was tired, and now I am simply bored. You are not the one to give talks about abstinence, Sirius.\"

\"This isn’t about abstinence.\" He shivered as if the word was one of the ugliest Dark curses. \"It’s about not fooling yourself and using people for the wrong reasons. You should date someone that really knows you and can deal with all the shite that goes with being in love with a werewolf!\"

\"Oh, really?\" Remus threw down the shirt in his hand in anger. \"And just who is out there,\" he wiggled his fingers outward to indicate the vague concept, \"that really knows me? Can you name one person who can really deal with the fact that I am a werewolf?\"

Sirius glared back at him \"Sometimes you are an insufferable git, Remus. You would be perfect for Snivellus. Why don’t you go try to shag him next? There’s plenty of grease. Maybe you can fit it in real tight!\"

\"Get out of my room, you ass!\"

\"This is my room, too, or has the perfect prefect forgotten that?\" Sirius looked at Remus as if he were ready to rip his head off and use it for a chamber pot.

\"If you don’t get away from me right now, I might forget that you’re supposed to be my friend,\" he spat as if the word was sour in his mouth.

\"You need to get your priorities straight, Remus!\"

\"Oh, surely. Find a ‘deep and meaningful relationship’ with someone who knows I am a werewolf.\" His voice was dripping with sarcasm. \"Such an easy task, too. Again I have to ask you, who is out there that really knows me and can handle truth? I bet you can’t name even one person!\"

\"I DO!\" he finally shouted back so filled with anger that he was shaking from head to toe. \"But right now I hate looking at your damned face.\"

Sirius took his outside cloak and left the room but not without a measure of loud noises and a slamming door.

Remus stood staring in shock at the door Sirius had just exited. That was the moment for good or ill that the path of his love had officially changed.

~*~

12 Grimmauld Place

That night, Remus took a candle to his room and set it on the table beside his bed. He was exhausted in the search that led to nothing except him either writhing in pain on the floor or suddenly falling asleep. At best, the week had been difficult, and tomorrow night he had to face the full moon.

He was fairly pragmatic for a wizard. It wasn’t logical that the strange experiences were because he could hear Ginny. He was unsure of the reason he kept this important detail from the others except that some part of him doubted that it was real.

Perhaps it was an insanity brought on by the need to save someone because he could not save Sirius. Tonks might have been right about him after all. Even if it wasn’t, the insanity vote had already been voiced by Kingsley, and it permeated their working relationship like a malicious fog.

He changed from his day clothing to old cast off pajama bottoms from Sirius. He knew he wouldn’t sleep well tonight. He didn’t sleep well the night before a full moon under the best of circumstances, but with the dreams and aural hallucinations, he had no false impressions that the night would bring him rest.

Ginny, if only you could talk to me. I can hear you, he thought in the same way that others mentally offer their prayers to their chosen deity.

Assuming he could hear her, which after two weeks was a safe assumption, he had to wonder the connection went to other way. That was the one thing he hadn’t yet tried. It was worth a shot. If it failed, it wouldn’t be any different than any other thing they’d tried to this point.

He stared at the candle on the table, meditating into the flame, and waited for the pain to come back like a familiar friend. When it did, he was almost happy about it. Using the same magical intent when he found her with the mirror, he tried to send his thoughts back to the source.

At first there seemed to be nothing coherent but the loudness of his own thoughts in his head. Ginny. Ginny. Ginny, he mentally beseeched. He refocused on the intensity of the flickering flame, how it danced but was essentially ephemera. He took a deep centering breath and then though again more intensely, //Ginny!//

Like an arrow piercing the darkness, that final call hit its target. Whatever had been in its place before stopped still. Remus felt no more waves of physical or emotional pain. Not wanting to lose whatever edge me might have gained, the werewolf rushed onward in thought.

//Ginny, can you hear me? We’ve been searching for you for two weeks. Please tell me if that’s you out there!//

Silence surrounded him then and went so long that Remus doubted his earlier feeling of success was true. He heard nothing, though his ears strained to listen. He had fallen into a state of stupor and thought he found himself finally drifting in sleep when he finally heard the first intelligible sound that had come back to him.

//Who is this?//

~*~*~*~

The Neil Finn lyric used in this chapter comes from \"I Feel Possessed\", performed by Crowded House on the album Temple of Low Men.